Nonsense, obviously the emergency capacitors would absorb any access energy created by the array. The only side effect was in they overloaded they would discharge through the main reactor core overloading several systems, possibly causing a flux in the hyper-drive which would create a tach...

I build microfluidic devices and man it can be time consuming to design fabricate and test them. To design a good device you have to draw up the design, fabricate it (often in a clean room) and then assemble and test it. With this I could just get a little slimy and in 30 minutes have a good idea if what I have is going to work...Now I just have to convince my boss I'm not just playing with Legos at work

Reporters and the like are always trying to get an 'angle' obviously, but still - it's a little lame to emphasize the Lego portion of this. I love Legos, but let's face it - this apparatus could have been built out of many other things. The real 'science' behind this story is the construction of a scale model and details upon how the researchers were able to prove similitude [wikipedia.org] between the large and micro scales. Not that pop sci articles aren't valuable, but using Lego as a hook to a legitimate science publication seems gimmicky.

I love Legos, but let's face it - this apparatus could have been built out of many other things.

The researcher answers the question:

* Lego is available and accessible, moreso than developing tools or using ad hoc scavenged parts to make your own pegs
* Lego is machined to fairly high standards of consistency and clean geometry, which helps this particular study